A remarkable event
took place on Dec.
8, 2011, at the National Press Club in downtown Washington. It was a
Jewish-Gentile forum on Israel, Palestine, Zionism, anti-Zionism,
anti-Semitism,
and the imminent threat of war.

As the book’s caption says, dramatic
changes have been taking place in the attitudes of American Jews toward
Israel and Zionism. At no time since the founding of the State of Israel
in 1948 has there been such disenchantment with Israel and Zionism.
The role the
Israel lobby played in
the Iraq War and the “global war on terror,” as well as Israel’s
attacks on Lebanon and Gaza, made large
swaths of the American
Jewish community question Israel’s foreign policy and its Zionist
ideology.

The history of Jewish anti-Zionism
in America predates the founding of Israel. Ross’s hero is Elmer Berger, a Reform Jewish rabbi (1908 –1996) who was
one of the founders and first director of the American Council for Judaism
(ACJ), which took a strongly
anti-Zionist stance at its founding in 1942. Berger resigned from the
ACJ in 1968, but he continued to fight via American
Jewish Alternatives to Zionism,
an organization he led until he died in 1996.

Ross says his own discovery of the
anti-Zionist heritage of America was “a revelation.” He praises
Berger’s mentor, the father of American Reform Judaism, Isaac Mayer Wise, who in 1900 denounced the nascent Zionist
movement as “a prostitution of Israel’s holy cause to a madman’s
dance of unsound politicians.”

Killgore recalled his friendship with
the rabbi. “Elmer and I were in agreement,” he said, that “Hitler’s
persecution of European Jewry was being cynically exploited by the Zionists
to further their own cause.” In the 1960s, said Killgore, the rabbi
was tireless in explaining to U.S. diplomats dealing with the Middle East
that “Judaism’s basic values could not be reconciled with disregard
for the rights of the Palestinians upon whose lands the new Jewish state
had been created.”

Speaker after speaker praised Ross’s
book as an act of scholarly perseverance and civic courage. The book
also won the praise of such scholars as John Mearsheimer of the University
of Chicago, co-author of the 2006 book The
Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy.Though he was not present at the forum, Professor Mearsheimer sent his comments, calling the work an “important book for anyone
interested in understanding the complex history of how American Jews
have related to the State of Israel.”

Actually, anti-Zionism in the United States has
a long history. Among the several Reform rabbis who founded the American
Council for Judaism, Berger is the best-known because he dedicated his
whole life to the struggle to free U.S. foreign policy from the grip of
Zionists. Whereas Berger’s anti-Zionism was rooted in Reform Judaism,
his modern followers are not the only American Jews who oppose Zionist
Israel. There are the radical pro-socialist
leftists who want to make
Israel a binational Jewish-Arab state. And there is the Neturei Karta movement of Orthodox Haredi Jews who call
for a peaceful dismantling of Israel because, in their view, Jews are
commanded not to have their own state until the coming of the Messiah.

Zionists, on the other hand, either
reject or don’t care for the spiritual, eschatological, and metaphysical
dimensions of Judaism. Theirs is a quasi-religious ideology that aims
at purely political, materialist, territorial, and economic goals. As
Brownfeld pointed out, true “Judaism is centered on the worship
of God, not the idolatry or worshiping of any political entity.” He
agreed with Ross that “the essence of Judaism is not in the ‘national
narrative’ … but rather in … the prophets, who spoke out against
the kings and priests who corrupted the nation and the people.”

Josh Ruebner noted that
the more Israel oppresses Palestinians, the more young American Jews
question the Israel lobby and the right-wing government
of Benjamin Netanyahu. Desperate to ensure support for Israel, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC)
pays for “birthright Israel” trips for Americans. But the majority
of young Jews enjoy their American birthright, as they abhor the fact
that since its inception Israel has relied on violence in pursuit of
its goals in the Middle East.

“The façade of Jewish unanimity
that AIPAC likes to project will not last forever,” said Ruebner.
His organization is an umbrella for over 380 U.S. groups that aim to end
the Israeli occupation of Palestine. They campaign for Boycott, Disinvestment, and
Sanctions (BDS) against
Israeli interests in the U.S.

Though originally indifferent to religion,
Zionist political ideology now likes to dress up Israel’s territorial
ambitions in religious garb. This hypocrisy, however,
backfired as it inspired the struggle of Palestinian Arabs, both Muslim
and Christian, against dispossession, discrimination, and humiliation
inside and outside of Israel.

Zionist claims on Jerusalem as an exclusive
capital of Israel have inflamed anti-Israeli and anti-American passions
in all Muslim countries. It has helped the fanatical jihadists win the hearts and minds of millions of Muslims
who came to mistrust their moderate and secular politicians for their
failure to defend Muslim rights to Jerusalem, or Al-Quds, as sacred to
their cultural tradition.

As an exclusive capital of Israel,
Jerusalem is an abomination to Muslims and Christians alike. It is
also abhorrent to those religious and secular Jews who are proud that
Judaism set high ethical standards for its Christian and Islamic
offshoots. Now divided and sectored, Jerusalem ought to be a universal
monument to religious tolerance and brotherhood under the auspices
of the United Nations. Only then could it fulfill its prophesied role as
a source
of unity for mankind.

A hotbed of hatred, mistrust, and war
in the Middle East, Israel also sets a bad example for right-wing
demagogues in Europe and the United States who clamor for getting tough
on Muslim and other immigrants, just as the Israelis were in their Operation Cast
Lead against the
Gaza Strip. It is noteworthy that the Labor Party youth group that the Norwegian
right-wing extremist Anders
Behring Breivik attacked
on July 22, 2011, expressed support for the BDS campaign against
Israel.

Albert Rosenblatt, a poet and journalist
who came to the forum from New York, suggested it’s not enough for
American Jews to be “anti,” be it anti-Zionist, anti-Israel, or
anti–American Empire. “Don’t we need to say what we are FOR?”
Several people responded that they do not necessarily question Israel’s
right to exist, but they want to have its policy revised in such a way that
it would become not “a Jewish state,” but a normal country.

Since Jon Utley mentioned my role in
finding the grave of his Jewish father, Arkady Berdichevsky, who was
executed in the USSR during mass purges of the “Trotskyites,” I
felt I had to speak too. Referring to Jon’s article published in 2005
in The
Freeman and
later turned into a film, Return to the Gulag: Jon Utley’s Search for His Father, I thanked him for introducing me to the
story of Rabbi Berger as a fellow dissident, just as Jon and I have
been.

In my own comments, I noted that when
I came to the United States in 1966 on an invitation from the University of Chicago,
I didn’t find many Zionists on or off campus. My main concern
was that too many of my colleagues and students were either pro-Soviet
or soft on Communism. With all respect due to Rabbi Berger, I take exception
to his illusions about the USSR as the land of liberty for the Jews.
Communism was good neither for Jews nor Muslims nor Russians, especially
the religious ones. As a totalitarian ideology, Communism was hostile
to all free spirits, even the atheists who were not of the Marxist-Leninist
stripe.

Zionism was not in vogue then in the
United States. The predominant concern was not with the fate of Israel but with making
sure we didn’t irritate the USSR in Vietnam and elsewhere, lest a
nuclear war be unleashed. Sometimes, I felt I was just about the only
Zionist in Chicago, and I’m a Gentile to boot. I knew Soviet propaganda
manipulated Palestinians for geopolitical advantage.

The main significance of this forum
is that we let the world know that there are many courageous and righteous
Jews who are not Zionists. By honoring the memory of Rabbi Berger we
inflict a blow not only to Zionists, but also to those who lump all
Jews into one homogeneous group that rushes from one extreme to another,
from Communist internationalism, which cares for neither religion nor
nationality, to Zionist nationalism. Israel’s leaders
profess to care for one religion and one nationality. In fact, they have
but one self-serving goal: to perpetuate their own power at any cost,
even at great risk to the rest of humanity.

We broke for refreshments and fresh
efforts to figure out, face to face, what’s going on in Israel, the
United States, and the world. The foremost topic was: Will Israel attack Iran?
Will the United States allow it to happen? Will we facilitate the attack?

Nobody knew the answer, but the concern
itself showed how far the Zionist regime was ready to take the whole
world for the sake of its own survival.

Lately, this concern has spiked. I
have already posted a
report about Russian troops
in the Caucasus being put on high alert in case an Israeli attack
triggers warfare along Iran’s borders with Georgia, Armenia, and
Azerbaijan.

It was also reported, or rather, underreported, that on Dec. 16 President Barack Obama
met behind closed doors with Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak. The
meeting was held in the outskirts of Washington, D.C., at the Gaylord Hotel,
National Harbor, Maryland. It focused on the issue of a U.S.-Israeli attack
on Iran.

Since Obama has already said he takes
“no options off the table,” one might suspect, as Michel Chossudovsky of Global
Research does, that the
attack on Iran could include the use of tactical bunker-buster nuclear
weapons that only the United States has and that Israel may request to make the
attack effective. These bunker busters have an explosive capacity between
one third and six times that of the
Hiroshima bomb.

Most fittingly, at least, in the popular
psyche, 2012 is the year of Armageddon. Fiat justitia, pereat
mundus, “let justice be done even if the world shall perish”: this
was one of the philosopher Immanuel
Kant’s maxims. Whether
this Latin
motto stems from ancient
Rome or Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand I (1503-1564), its grave implications
are no longer philosophical. Nor are they metaphorical.

Whatever pretext Israel and the United States
(for consistency) might find for the war they threaten, at stake is
the existence of the world as we know it. Even a triumph of their
justitia may turn utterly hollow, for there might be no people to
celebrate it. So the real question that Jews and non-Jews alike face
today is: Is the world for Israel or are Jews for the world? We know
how Rabbi Berger would have answered.

201203836317 Responseshttp%3A%2F%2Foriginal.antiwar.com%2Fkrasnow%2F2012%2F01%2F08%2Fthe-world-for-israel%2FThe+World+for+Israel%2C+or+Jews+for+the+World%3F2012-01-09+06%3A00%3A18W.+George+Krasnowhttp%3A%2F%2Foriginal.antiwar.com%2F%3Fp%3D2012038363 to “The World for Israel, or Jews for the World?”

Yet ANOTHER crack in the mythic facade of that monolithic, Protocolonic Zionistic Elders Conspiracy to enslave the whole world under the banner of The Star of David ?!?

These are getting to be pretty regular here on antiWar.com .

Israel is NOT The Dog; Israel is the Tail. And Israel is NOT the Tail that "Wags The Dog." Israel is a Tool.

Israel does what its Masters, Handlers, Keepers, and Pimps in DC tell it to do. It has been ever so since its creation as a tactical and strategic outpost for Anglo-American oil interests in that part of the world with the biggest reserve of easy-to-get-to oil on the planet. When the oil runs out, or the Tool loses its effectiveness as an outpost designed to keep the America War-Making business in business, it will be terminated, just like all those other Tools of American Hegemony: Diem, Somoza, The Shah, Noriega, Marcos, Saddam, bin Laden, Khadafi, to name but a few.

"Zionists, on the other hand, either reject or don’t care for the spiritual, eschatological, and metaphysical dimensions of Judaism."

This is totally absurd. I'm a Zionist Jew and I'm proud of it. I have my reasons, and they are not because I want to ethnically cleanse anyone or murder anyone. I just feel that the Jewish people desperately need a homeland, just like I believe the Palestinian people do. Would I be a bigot if went on a rant condemning nationalistic Palestinians? You bet so. I do care so much for the spiritual dimensions of Judaism as well, and in fact I have been taught the core values of the religion my entire life.

Broad statements, like the one you made, are the reason people will call you anti-semitic. You're not anti-semitic because you're against Israel. You're more than welcome to your own opinion. You're anti-semitic because you're stereotyping a group of people based on your preconceptions. I'd even go so far as to say you're not anti-S if you take extreme positions against Israel and condemn their actions, but to just designate a whole group of people (Zionists, many of whom are Jewish) as aloof to the concerns of metaphysical Judaism is ignorant at best and hateful at worst.

I'll admit that many who are anti-Israel are also anti-semitic. That is unfortunate and counter productive. Many Jews I have talked to have misgivings about the present government of Israel, even those Jews who were born in Israel and moved to the US. Many Israeli citizens don't support the Likud party. As a gentile, I am of the opinion that right-wing evangelical Christians are the most bigoted (and anti-semitic) people in the world. Paradoxically, many of those are Zionists.

"I'm a Zionist Jew and I'm proud of it. I have my reasons, and they are not because I want to ethnically cleanse anyone or murder anyone."

The problem, Abe, is not whether you "want" to ethnically cleanse or murder anyone, but whether you actually ***DO*** it, or support those who ***DO*** it.

Let the Jews — by the way, I'm an American and a Jew — have a country of their own, and let them allow only Jews to live there, and let them behave any old way they want. Not my concern. Funny hats, inter-Jew friction over religious law, practices, whatever. Have at it.

But Palestine belonged to the people who lived there. Stealing it from the Palestinians, killing them, dispossessing them, lying about this criminal program — in particular, calling them "terrorists" and slaughtering them when they fight back — just will not stand before the bar of world justice or the bar of Jewish justice, and is a thoroughly monstrous betrayal of the ethical center of Judaism.

You know all this, and yet you turn a blind eye to this truth. You want the Zionists to keep what they have stolen, and you make excuses to that end. This is the essence of criminality and the antithesis of Judaism. This is hypocrisy and apostasy, manically and shamefully clung to, feebly justified by a thoroughly fictitious notion of "safety" in the stolen homeland. But there is no safety in a suicide pact, founded on greed, savagery, and psychopathic political ambition.

You need to review and revise your support for Zionism. As currently practiced, it's just a path to the next Holocaust. There can be no peace without justice. Pursue justice and you will find peace.

The question answers itself. When it comes to pleasing the likudniks, no price is to high, trillions can be spend, millions can die, and it's still not enough.

Despite claims to the contrary, isrelis and jews seem to be not all that different from other peoples, they enjoy watching their government exercise power- preferably against others, sometimes against themselves, it doesn't matter. As long as strength is being expressed verbally and forcefully, it's all good. To see US presidents jump everytime bibi/avi/ehud and the rest of them say so, must be such a proud moment. Let alone watching the alleged empire and its entire apparatus try to move hell and earth to ensure a loving smile, a dollar contribution.

The sickness is too common. After years of semi-developed politics we are back in the jungle/desert were might is everything. And this more than 2000 years after the West was invented.

Mr. Krasnow, I too was at the event in question, where I first learned of the late Rabbi Berger, and met you and others who appreciate his views. I was quite heartened to find others who understand the premise, that "Judaism’s basic values could not be reconciled with disregard for the rights of the Palestinians upon whose lands the new Jewish state had been created.” In recent years I have been on a quest to educate others on the distinction between political Zionism and the Jewish faith. It is an uphill battle, but we must all persist. I hope to see you on Capitol Hill Feb. 7 at the event co-sponsored by CNI and ICMES. Best, Lorraine

By "2000 years" ago, do you mean to imply that The Roman Empire was the "invention of the West"?

The history of Western so-called civilization (What was it Gandhi said when asked what he thought about western civilization….that "it would be a good idea") is one drenched in the blood of conquered, enslaved, or exterminated peoples and lands, from Europe to Asia to Africa to the Americas to Austral-Oceania to the Middle East.

All that has happened is that we have moved from one manifestation of Empire to another, newer, deadlier, and more deranged.

It is very important that the anti-zionist Jewish community speak out loud and clear against Zionism, as well as teach the public and/or dispel any myths about Zionism. This subject lends itself to gross misunderstanding, fueling hatred between Jews and non-Jews.

And here it's so funny there's a website called Antiwar.com that preaches how neo-Cons are Trotskyites and Communists even though we have Jew-haters like yourself agreeing with someone like Joseph Stalin the Jews should be in Birobidzhan. What hypocrites.

Palestinian leaders tell their pawns in the Palestinian public to believe that 9/11 is their 24/7, while at the same time they have idiots like the operators of Antiwar.com promote how Israel somehow "knew" the 9/11 attacks were going to happen.

Who the hell does that? Goes around and claims that Israel knew in advance the 9/11 attacks were going to happen and then also claim that the USA's 9/11 is Palestine's 24/7? There will be no peace until the Palestinians stop having leaders who say it's okay to kill a Jew and anyone else who disagrees with them.

Israel, not United States, is Iran's enemy. An Iran with nuclear weapons will disrupt Israel's cruel and outrageously exercised Mideast hegemony. All our Mideast wars have been against our interests, yet successfully advocated by the Jewish state. Again against our interests, Israel has involved us in increasingly overt operations against Iran. Spies and American military drones in Iranian airspace are the most recent revelations. Since before 9/11, American soldiers have been dying for the Jewish state. We are at war. Who did this to us? Israel, AIPAC, and other organized and monied Israel Firsters have corrupted our politicians and entire electoral system. Justice and the future of America demand that they be prosecuted and jailed.

Too bad the Arab world is using the Palestinians as political pawns. They are denied citizenship in many Arab countries and suffer greatly just because these Arab regimes are using them as a tool against Israel. Too bad.

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W. George Krasnow (also published as Vladislav Krasnov), Ph.D., runs the Russia and America Goodwill Association, a nonprofit organization of Americans for friendship with Russia. Formerly, he was a professor and director of Russian Studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies in California.